Improving Criminal Justice Systems Through Expanded Strategies and InnovativeCollaborations. Report of the National Symposium on Indigent Defense. Held in Washington, DC. on February 25-26, 1999

摘要

The obligation of the States to provide legal representation to people accused ofcrime who are too poor to retain their own counsel was established by the U.S. Supreme Court as a matter of Federal constitutional law in 1963, in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright. The attorneys general of 22 States joined in urging the Court to do so. In the intervening three and a half decades, States have responded to Gideon in various ways. Some have shouldered the responsibility themselves, establishing and funding statewide agencies to provide indigent defense. In others, counties bear the burden. Three service-delivery models have evolved: governmental public defender agencies, bulk contracts with private lawyers, and case-by-case appointments. National standards have been promulgated and have been implemented by States and localities in different ways, covering issues such as maximum annual caseloads, staffing ratios, resource parity with prosecution and courts, training, attorney qualifications and performance, and defender independence from the political forces and judicial branches. But the extent to which States and localities are succeeding in fulfilling the promise of Gideon varies widely. Overall, despite progress in many jurisdictions, indigent defense in the United States today is in a chronic state of crisis. Standards are frequently not implemented, contracts are often awarded to the lowest bidder without regard to the scope or quality of services, organizational structures are weak, workloads are high, and funding has not kept pace with other components of the criminal justice system. The effects can be severe, including legal representation of such low quality to amount to no representation at all, delays, overturned convictions, and convictions of the innocent. Ultimately, as Attorney General Janet Reno states, the lack of competent, vigorous legal representation for indigent defendants calls into question the legitimacy of criminal convictions and the integrity of the criminal justice system as a whole. In 1997, the Attorney General and officials of the Office of Justice Programs and the Bureau of Justice Assistance convened a focus group of 35 leaders of the indigent defense community and identified 6 areas in which the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) could play an effective role in promoting strong and stable indigent defense systems.